Hybrid Warfare

In the global strategic and security community, Hybrid War is meant for gaining interest along with
influencing strategic thinking by engineering demoralization at several levels. The concept of Hybrid
War is as old as the warfare itself, but its canvas has expanded beyond conventional techniques to
other means and ways, including propaganda campaigns.1 The nature and character of Hybrid War
have transformed into an extremely damaging instrument due to its execution and the resultant
impact on the people of the targeted country.2 Pakistan has been under the cloud of Hybrid War for
the last two decades by India and its Western allies.

Some scholars also include state’s coercion, conventional and non-traditional threats, grey-zone
conflict, financial sanctions, coercive diplomacy, cyber-attacks, irregular criminality, and
international pressure within an ever-expansive paradigm of Hybrid War.

Hybrid War is defined as the process and employment of multiple avenues to hurt the enemy with
all the available kinetic and non kinetic means of warfare making into a parallel or even
complementary pursuit of achieving the goals “by other means.” Hybrid War has been the subject of
intense debate in Pakistan over the recent past because the country found itself under the spotlight
by India and a motley of its numerous supporters pursuing their own unilateral agendas and
interests.

India has often successfully employed all the available means at its discretion to hurt its rival
Pakistan militarily, economically, psychologically, internationally, and domestically.8 The Indian
Hybrid Warfare strategy is/was to exploit the existing fault lines in Pakistan’s political system, which
is highly polarized and vulnerable to exploitation.

From urban terrorism to sectarian killings, manipulation in stock exchanges to kidnappings for
ransom, bomb blasts in shopping malls to suicidal attacks on military convoys, instigation for political
uprisings to separatist movements in Baluchistan, the country has several defenceless areas. In
addition, India has consistently mount everything possible to hurt Pakistan’s image in the
international system. However, what India could not achieve was its ultimate objective: weaken the
resolve of the Pakistani nation and turn them against its armed forces.

Nature and Character of Hybrid War Since the objective of every war and escalation is to win over
the argument--whether on the battlefield or on the negotiating table as per the Chinese philosopher
and strategist Sun Tzu who pronounced it some 2500 years ago—triumph remains the ultimate focal
point. Sun Tzu insisted that the ‘acme of the skill is not to defeat the enemy on the battlefield but to
win a war without fighting.

the character of modern wars is changing at a rapid pace, perhaps because the wars have become
more expensive than ever before and there are more avenues and optional stratagems available to
subjugate the enemy at a lesser cost. Interestingly, neither the concept of Hybrid War is new nor the
objectives of the perpetrators, however, the scope of execution has expanded beyond the usual, due
to the technological developments, nations’ capacity to absorb shock, and resistance to foreign
interventions.

On the other hand, traditionally, India has made use of all elements of the Hybrid War to weaken
Pakistan from within to make it a pliant state so that it can resolve all its disputes including Jammu
and Kashmir (J&K) on its own terms. The same has been highlighted in the report of EU DisinfoLab
that India spent 15 years spreading anti-Pakistan sentiments through some 750 fake media outlets
all over the world.23 Simultaneously, India used its diplomatic leverage effectively to hurt Pakistan’s
economy and stature by implicating it in money-laundering and terror financing.

Hybrid war and its perception in Pakistan

Conventional wars are more expensive due to advanced technology weapons but remain short-lived,
whereas Hybrid War acts as a slow poison on the target state and delivers a deeper impact. “Hybrid
Warfare uses coordinated military, political, economic, civilian and informational (MPECI)
instruments of power that

Following are some of the key approaches that have negatively affected the internal and external
stability of Pakistan.

Diplomatic Manoeuvres:

India employed diplomatic manoeuvres at international forums to isolate Pakistan on charges of

supporting cross-border terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). The same has been highlighted in
the report of EU DisinfoLab that India spent 15 years spreading anti-Pakistan sentiments through
some 750 fake media outlets all over the world.

Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and International Monetary Fund (IMF):

India managed to persuade the minds of the major financial organizations to put pressure on
Pakistan, and hence, Pakistan was placed on the grey list by the FATF in June 2018. Similarly, India
had put extreme conditions for financial assistance from the IMF and forced Pakistan to seek
financial help from friendly countries and avoid a default-like situation soon after Imran Khan’s
government came to power in August 2018.28 However, the IMF accepted Pakistan’s request for
financial assistance in July 2019, only after it was assured of its full compliance of even tougher
conditions. It was also mentioned that they (the IMF program) forced the government to appoint a
governor and the finance minister of their choice who could pursue the recommendations put forth
by the IMF and FATF. This is how they use these key internal positions within the government to
pursue their larger goals. The IMF program has emerged as a new instrument of Hybrid War against
Pakistan and this instrument has been ably used by the international powers to put pressure and
force Pakistan to go to the IMF for the Balance of Payment support otherwise the country would be
blacklisted.

Media war:

Another approach that India adopted in its Hybrid War on Pakistan was through an organized
information and propaganda campaign

Internal instability: The barbarous attack on Army Public School on December 16, 2014, was the
watershed event in Pakistan’s history of its struggle against extremism and terrorism.31 In an armed
attack, later accepted by the Taliban, more than 150 people embraced martyrdom, 132 of them
being students. India has been funding and fueling sabotage and subversive activities through its
proxies across the length and breadth of Pakistan. One of its operators, Kulbushan Jadhav was
apprehended near the IranPakistan border.32 He was a serving Indian Navy officer with a task to
engage local mercenaries for creating chaos in Balochistan by killing the ethnic population of the
Hazara community. Concurrently, he was also active in organizing ethno-sectarian violence in
Karachi. However, Indian media got badly exposed when one of its outspoken anchors Arnab
Goswami’s WhatsApp leaks33 came to the fore about the Pulwama and Balakot incidents. Two years
after the Pulwama incident, it is learnt that Balakot strikes were pre-planned to take revenge for the
Pulwama incident without considering the consequences of conflict escalation between the two
nuclear neighbours.34 India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi placed the entire region at risk of
conflict escalation only to gain sympathy from his vote bank for the lives of 40 soldiers and then
declare victory in Balakot strikes, without accepting the loss of two fighter jets of IAF, including a
captured pilot.

Jointly conducted by the state and the Non-State Actors (NSAs):

India’s Hybrid War on Pakistan was particularly challenging because it was jointly conducted by the
state and the Non-State Actors (NSAs). While India’s state organs were targeting Pakistani posts and
civilians on the Line of Control (LoC), it is funded and supported by NSAs who were engaged in
subversive activities across Pakistan.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

Pakistan needs to work on improving its internal policies anchored on consensus and peaceful
coexistence that otherwise leave open loopholes that are misused by external factors. To overcome
the internal challenges Pakistan needs to put her house in order.

Karachi being the economic growth center of the country needs to be stabilized on all fronts leaving
no area vulnerable to chasms and conflict. The lack of inclusive governance in the province of Sindh
in general, and Karachi, and likewise instability in Balochistan, provide fertile ground for external
forces to manipulate the internal dynamics of a plural society like Pakistan. Hence, maintaining
peace and stability in Karachi and Balochistan is essential for Pakistan's overall economic
development and prosperity.

To improve the economic situation at large, Pakistan needs to cut down on its imports and work on
improving its exports by undertaking all kinds of systemic and corrective measures.

In terms of the Balochistan issue, the government needs to bring Baloch people into mainstream
politics, and human capital development should be the official priority. Institutions of higher learning
such as universities, provincial departments, and local governance structures will substantiate
Pakistan’s political sinews and cohesion. This will help bring forward highly-skilled people into
various key development projects such as the CPEC across the Indus lands and especially in an
underdeveloped Balochistan. Within this perspective, NUST has opened its Campus in Quetta to help
support the Baloch population and improve their human capital.

Like India, Pakistan also needs to establish its media and research units across the world to promote
a positive image and narrative and that is where public diplomacy deserves significant attention.

CONCLUSION:

The enduring rivalry between India and Pakistan has been changing the battlegrounds. From all-out
conventional wars in the pre-nuclear era to the limited military engagements in Siachen, Kargil and
Balakot under the nuclear overhang, to all spectrum Hybrid War has been spanning over two
decades, India has left no stone unturned to subjugate Pakistan with an active support of the US and
its allies.